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The
Designer: Harris Mann
“I
set out to design tomorrow’s luxury family saloon… A car that would instantly
make the competition seem old fashioned.”
For those of you who don’t
recognise the name - though there can be few British car enthusiasts who
don’t – Harris Mann was the British Leyland designer whose most famous works
are the Austin Allegro, Princess and Triumph TR7. Much has been written on
the subject of Harris Mann and the cars he came up with in the Seventies.
Little of it is complimentary though. All designers strive to design
something that is instantly recognisable as individualistic. In the case of
Harris Mann, he did three in quick succession. That what eventually emerged
caused controversy is a sign that he tried to do something that stood out
from the crowd. The new and radical always divides opinion.
Mann’s sleek, low lined
Allegro design was severely corrupted by the time it reached production.
It is important to point out too that, in the case of the Allegro,
what Harris Mann had designed and what British Leyland actually built were
two different things. Once the production engineers were let loose to wreak
standardisation and cost-cutting vengeance on the Allegro all that remained
of Mann’s original design was a mere caricature. He was allowed a freer hand
with the Princess and TR7, and as a result came up with two of the most
distinctively styled mainstream cars ever to come out of a mainstream British
car company. The dramatic wedge shapes were totally of their era. That the cars
themselves eventually became to be regarded in an unfavourable light was the
result of British Leyland’s financial crisis, appalling build quality control
record, atrocious industrial relations, laughable attitude towards marketing
and inherent lack of managerial ability. British Leyland wouldn’t even have
been able to find a brewery, let alone organise a bloody good time in one.
When the Princess first appeared, the media loved the shape, citing it as
‘’futuristic’’. By comparison, it’s nearest rival - the Ford Granada – looked
boring and dated. And however much traditionalists scoff at the TR7’s
appearance, the cold hard fact still remains that it was the biggest selling
of all the TR models, shifting 112,368 (114,865 if you include the TR8) in
just six years.
There’s also far more to Harris Mann than British Leyland. He’s had a
long and varied career in the automotive industry, and is still active today
as a freelance designer, working with some of the biggest firms around, and
currently involved in some very exciting projects.
The history of Harris Mann started in London, in April 1938, As far
back as he can remember, there was an interest in cars, and when the
opportunity presented itself, he went to engineering school. “It was a great
help in a lot of ways,” he recalls. “That gave me a very good practical
understanding of things.” He was able to put this understanding into practice
when he got an apprenticeship from the bus and coach firm Duple soon
afterwards, who sent him for training in motor body engineering.
“After I’d finished the apprenticeship in London – it was a
draughtsman role – I looked around for something new. However, it was
difficult into get into the car industry in those days, there weren’t the
opportunities there are today. So I emigrated to the Sates, towards the end
of the fifties, to look for work. But it was the wrong time when I got there.
There were problems in the steel industry.”
Harris stayed in America for just six
months, working for the Raymond Loewy Company, although his personal contact
with the legendary designer himself was limited. “I was just part of a team,
doing things like designing tread patterns and sidewalls for tyres”. Then the
work dried up. “I came back to Britain and got nobbled for the Army. It was
meant to be two years National Service but I got stung for another six due to
a crisis in Germany.”
After demob, Harris went back to Duple, but didn’t appreciate still
being regarded as an apprentice. He was soon at Commer at Luton as a
draughtsman/design engineer on commercial vehicles. “That didn’t last very
long; I had nine months at Commer. Then I saw an advert for a job at Ford for
a feasibility engineer. I got that job and got into the design studios there.
This would have been around 1962.’’
Ford during the sixties must have been a great time for a young
designer keen to learn more and show his worth. “I did about nine months in
the feasibility area, then I presented the Head of Styling with a portfolio
of my own stuff,’’ says Harris. “I was feeding off a lot of Americans at the
time, and they gave me an insight into what they were doing.’’ The portfolio
was impressive enough to land Harris a “proper’’ job in the styling studios
at Aveley and Dunton. In total he was at Ford for five years, working on
Escorts, Capri’s (“I did a reasonable bit on the Capri,’’ he points out),
D-series trucks and some bus projects that Ford was contemplating at the
time.
His next move took him to the Midlands and eventual national
prominence. “The person I worked for, Roy Haynes, secured a job at the
British Motor Corporation to set up a studio in Oxford. And he asked me to go
with him. I felt it would be more of a step up a level. And so I went to
Oxford, and the Cowley plant.’’
At the end of the sixties, BMC was still in the Issigonis era.
However, Sir Alec hardly went out of his way to welcome the new young gun on
the team. “He had a big influence on me. But Issigonis wouldn’t talk to me
because I didn’t have an engineering degree.’’
The first major project for the Haynes and Mann partnership was ADO28,
instigated just months after BMC and Leyland Motors (Rover and Triumph)
merged to become British Leyland. The car that would eventually become better
known as the Marina was intended primarily as an Escort/Cortina competitor.
It represented the first part of an overall plan Roy Haynes had come up with
for BMC, whereby there would be just three basic chassis, onto which a
variety of different bodies could be put, “…everything form Mini’s to Jags,’’
he said.
“When Roy worked at Ford, he’d come up with the conclusion that BMC
didn’t have an Escort competitor. The nearest thing to it was the Minor. The
Marina took the concept of the Minor and blew it up with a new body. It was
an effort to try and split the product range and get some money back.’’
Harris was also working on his own individual projects. One of the
more distinctive was Zanda, a styling exercise exhibited through 1969 as a
showcase for products by Pressed Steel Fisher, the Cowley body making
company. The car was uncompromisingly wedge-shaped, showing the way that
Harris Mann, and, separately, others like Giugaro and Bertone – believed car
design was evolving.
“In the back of my mind, I saw that as the route MG should take. I
thought they should look at mid-engined designs (a configuration to which the
wedge shape is ideally suited). It was my way of tickling management. When
you looked around at what the rest of Europe was doing, BMC was like a
mausoleum.’’
It tickled management enough to earn Harris the chance to be chief
stylist on Austin’s next family saloon. Codename ADO67, design work on the
car had already started at Cowley, before there was, as Harris puts it, “…a
falling out between Roy Haynes and Longbridge. The people at Longbridge
didn’t like a separate outpost not under their control. So Roy departed, and
we were all pulled up to Longbridge.’’
The much lamented Allegro, a mere
caricature of Mann’s original design.
The Allegro has become a notorious car for many reasons, but early
Harris Mann sketches reveal it was at least intended to be far more
attractive. Explains Harris “We wanted to make a far more modern version of
the 1100/1300, keeping the long sleek look. Then a lot of other things
affected it. A heater was developed at astronomical cost, which was very
deep. That had to go in. Then we had to put in the E-Series engine, which was
more suitable for putting in a Leyland truck. So the whole car gained in height.
That made it look shorter and stumpier. Thicker seats were added inside,
which cut down on interior space. It was getting bulkier inside and out, and
lost the original sleekness. That was what happened, unfortunately.”
And at least Harris wasn’t responsible for that Quartic steering
wheel. “That came from engineering,’’ he says, “It wasn’t very good at all,
but we were instructed to do it.’’
Although he has often confessed himself “disappointed” by the eventual
appearance of the Allegro, Harris is still defensive of it. “You still see
more Allegro’s around than Cortina’s of the same era. It took a lot of stick,
but it wasn’t that bad a car. The trouble was every one off the line was
different in some way, thanks to quality control. I had one as a company car,
and it was one of the good ones.’’
Mann’s original concept
drawing of what would become the Princess.
Next project was the Princess, and once again, Harris’ original ideas
failed to make it to the metal. “That was conceived as a five door,’’ he says
of the car now universally nicknamed as the ‘wedge’. “If you look at the
rear, it’s the ideal shape for a hatchback. But we were told that would take
away the major selling point of the Maxi. In today’s climate, you just can’t
understand a decision like that. It was a boo-boo. By the time the Ambassador
came along with a hatchback, it was all just far too late. ’’
Another of Mann’s Princess concepts.
Like the Allegro, the Princess picked up a dubious reputation for lack
of quality. “It could have been a good car. Unfortunately, design or styling
seemed to take a lot of flack for what was engineering’s fault. It got let
down by the details.’’
The spin off from the Princess was the TR7, which continued with the
wedge theme. “Over at Triumph, they couldn’t re-engineer the TR6 to get it
into the States. They asked us to do a replacement concept, in just weeks.
Lord Stokes was around at the time and decided to put it into production,
with few modifications. It was done in a very short period.’’
The Triumph TR7. Designed
for the American market.
“Before I looked at the TR7, I went to the States to see what was
going on there. That’s why it was a bit more extreme. It was only really
planned for America. There was no reason to think it would be a European car.
It was also intended to be a Targa roof, but Engineering just couldn’t work
it out, A pity really.’’
Again, the TR7 has been regarded as something of a dark hour in
Triumphs history, but there was little chance for a car beset by so many
quality problems, thanks to appalling industrial relations at the Liverpool
plant where it was built. “The TR7 could have gone on longer, but the company
ran out of money. Leyland had this ability to do a product, then let it run
itself into the ground, not looking at the marketplace. The engine was
another tragedy. Saab took that and made a great Turbo out of it.”
Harris was also involved in the tricky task of trying to replace the
Mini. Under the ADO74 and ADO88 codenames, Harris Mann’s new themes were
radical departures from the cuddly persona of the original. ADO74 was
cancelled in 1973, due to the £130-million needed to produce it, but the
ADO88, on which work started in 1974, eventually metamorphosed into the Metro
in the eighties. “We had the same sort of problems as Volkswagen was having
replacing the Beetle. It was the same trauma as the Mini. There was just this
love affair with it.’’
Mann was heavily involved in the proposed Mini
replacement (ADO88), which became the Metro.
Harris’ final days with BL saw him working on the Maestro project.
David Bache at Rover was in overall charge, resulting in Rover’s design plans
being pushed through instead of Harris’s ideas. But he was called in to do
modifications on the car though.
“The big scallop down the side was derived from the SD1. The line was
meant to line up with the lights at the front and rear, but the rear lamps
were bigger. So the line looked like it was running down towards the end. I
called it the Hyena look, down at the rear.’’ And the solution? ‘’We had to
jack up the suspension in the end.’’ A few of the inherited features of the
Maestro went over to the Montego. ‘’That looked even more like it was
dropping down at the rear. So we added an extra wide trim strip to make it
look like it was running parallel.’’
Harris Mann left BL in 1983 after 15 years with, one senses, a sense
of frustration that whatever he tried to do was bedevilled by other factors
out of his control. “I’d had enough of their pernickety attitude – there was
something of the Chrysler approach coming in, which was not to be in any way
adventurous…’’
Working as a freelance, Harris went to BMW in the company’s Advance
Concept Package Department, with one effort becoming a show car. More recent
work has seen him facelift the Subaru Impreza for 2003 and, at the time of
writing, is back with a very familiar marque, MG. “I’m working with Peter
Stevens, the director of design at MG-Rover, on the SV sports car project,
getting it ready for production.’’
Having also collaborated on the latest MG-Z cars as well, the current
incarnation of what was British Leyland seems a much better place to work
these days. “It’s been quite a
project to work on, and it’s a great team. In comparison to a mainstream
production facility, it’s all very refreshing, no politics. I’m on a
freelance basis but in a sense, I’ve come full circle.’’
Harris Mann tries out a Princess at the NEC in November
2004.
Photo Ó
Kevin Davis.
“When I look back on my career, it’s been fun. It’s such a pity it ran
through such a period of discontent at BL. It’s hard to stake your claim in
this country and get the rewards you get in other countries. That said, I’m
still doing it, so I haven’t gone off of it.’’
And there are probably many fans of his
who hope he never does.
Article
reproduced from January 22nd 2003 edition of Classic Car Weekly.
By
kind permission of the Editor.
Copyright 2003. Classic Car Weekly.
This page updated May 2007.
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